1. Field of the Invention:
The invention relates to hosiery constructions and more specifically to toe constructions and to methods of forming toe constructions in women's seamless hosiery, panty hose, anklets, and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
It has been the practice in the manufacture of women's seamless hosiery to knit a seamless tube having welt, leg and foot portions formed of body yarn and to terminate the toe portion with a relatively wide band of courses of heavier or additional reinforcing threads so that the toe, as distinct from the foot and leg portions of the hosiery, inherently requires a heavier appearance. U.S. Pat. No. 2,699,056 illustrates a type of such reinforcement. With an increasing demand for a maximum nude appearance in the hosiery, one solution has been to avoid reinforcing all together in the toe portion. However, such a toe construction is easily damaged due to the amount of wear impressed in the toe portion during normal use. Another solution has been to use finer denier reinforcing threads but this has not provided a satisfactory solution for achieving a maximum nude look in the finished toe.
It can also be observed that, according to the present practice of putting a relatively wide band of reinforcement completely around the top and bottom portions of the toe portion of the typical woman's hose, substantially more reinforced area is provided than is actually needed; thus, conventional toe constructions actually use more reinforcing thread than is needed for reinforcing the greatest points of wear at the ends and sides of the toe extremities of the wearer. Panty hose and anklets are similar.